Wising up

Finally, the Democrats are wising up.

Fox News may have landed a Democratic debate, but the Democratic Party is refusing to give its formal stamp of approval to the September event, which will be co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.

“The DNC sanctioned debates will not include Fox," says DNC Communications Director Karen Finney in an email.

The Democratic National Committee announced today that it would sanction six debates, starting in July. In 2005, DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Fox "a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party," but has occasionally since then struck slightly more conciliatory notes.

The refusal of the party to consider sanctioning the Detroit debate, however, is a mark of an increasingly unified Democratic effort to marginalize the network.

Almost nobody who watches Faux News regularly will ever ever ever vote for a Democrat, so there's nothing to be gained by reaching out to the Faux audience. But, if Democrats and independents tune into a debate that happens to be on Faux News, they will be subjected to merciless anti-Democratic propoganda, which might convince them to vote Thuglican. So, there's alot to be lost by going on Faux. Further, if the Democrats marginalize Fox by refusing to appear on it, eventually Fox's own audience may lose interest since it's not covering the news at all.